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Sunday, 11 May 2014

On Conchita Wurst

First of all, banish the idea that whoever wins
Eurovision has anything to do with the quality of the songs. Ok, no, that's
harsh - let's say the quality of the music makes up, say, 20% of the decision
on who wins.

The rest is politics. Which is why it was laughable that
Eurovision Host Pilou Asbaek was banned from wearing rainbows as he wanted
because it was deemed “political.” Which country votes for which is always
based on relations and opinions between those countries (which is why you have
a lot of bloc voting and part of the reason Britain both doesn’t take it very
seriously and always does poorly – because we’ve annoyed and continue to annoy
a lot of people).

Homophobia has been an issue in European politics lately –
obviously with the looming bigotry of Russia. But not just Russia – it was
rather bitter, for example, to see political leaders decide boycotts, sanctions
and even not attending the Olympics et al against Russia for persecuting LGBT
people was a no-no, but when straight people in Ukraine were the target,
suddenly everything was on the table (including our “equality minister” telling
us how much she couldn’t possibly boycott the Olympics – then running like hell
from the Paralympics – showing homophobia and ableism). It’s also galling that
one of the many steps towards integration with the EU required Ukraine to
improve it’s anti-homophobia protection and this was dropped after the Russian
invasion (and Ukraine dropped anti-gay discrimination from their workplace
discrimination law) feeling a lot like the EU just shoved LGBT people under the
bus.

Then there was Conchita’s boycott – Russia, Ukraine and
Belarus all wanted Conchita disqualified and/or broadcasts of Eurovision to
edit Conchita out. They were hardly alone, though the usual suspects were most
vocal. There was a lot of pressure to remove Conchita entirely

And then Conchita won. That’s a message. Ok, the message
could be “You want to de-gay Eurovision? Are you SERIOUS? Please, we’ve been
claiming this since the 70s.” But it’s also a strong sense of rejection of the
very overt bigotry that has dogged Eurovision and Europe this year.

Is the song good? Yes/no/maybe/I don’t really care – but
I’m loving that the bigots stomped their feet and here, far more of us turned
round and told them to back off.